For six decades now, Nicky Haslam—often called “the best-connected man in Britain”—has found himself bang in the center of everything. This is something that’s made thumpingly clear to me as I sit with him outside Clarke’s restaurant in Notting Hill. The restaurant is closed, but Nicky knows the owner and she has put a table out for him.
The moment comes during an excited tangent about Jeremy King’s plans to reopen La Caprice. Out of nowhere a fight breaks out on the sidewalk, just a few feet away from us. “Come here and say that to my fucking face, you prick!” screams a dog walker to a cyclist over some unseen lapse in etiquette. As things begin to heat up, Haslam’s phone starts to ring. It is, of all people, Bryan Ferry. “Ooh, Bryan,” coos Haslam, calm as anything, “there’s gonna be a dogfight!”
